


Spoken and Unspoken

by theonetryingtolive



Category: Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Family, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:08:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24687394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theonetryingtolive/pseuds/theonetryingtolive
Summary: The war goes on, hearts are torn, and the clock strikes twelve all the same. Time, Hugo knew, didn’t fix anything.
Relationships: Hugo Stiglitz/Reader
Kudos: 15





	Spoken and Unspoken

Hugo Stiglitz had been in that cell for what felt like forever. He wouldn’t allow himself to remember a time before, or to think of a time after. All that was real, all that was true, was the pain of his ribs, the nibbling of the rats on the scraps he’d been fed, and the inescapable feeling of failure. Not because he had failed to overthrow the Nazi regime, but rather because he had not been shot while he’d been chipping away at it. Of the many ways to die, being shot was the one that had always appealed most to him. When they dragged him from his cell, kicking and snarling, he had managed to kill another one of them. They still hadn’t shot him. He had begun to think they were doing it on purpose. After all, he didn’t consider himself to be dangerous enough to deem being put down in Berlin. All those were rumors, regimes didn’t topple down because a bastard like him had gone on a killing spree after enduring more than what he allowed himself to remember.

When he closed his eyes, there was a house. When he opened them, there were rats scurrying into the darkness. When he closed them, there was a garden, and in the garden a doll, a pink blanket wet with blood. There would always be a doll in every memory he dug up from the deepest, darkest corners of himself. A doll, and a pair of blue eyes, a smile. Whenever he closed his eyes he could hear the pitter-patter of little feet running on hardwood floors, the sound of laughter. When he opened his eyes, the memories receded, faded into the background. The footfalls of the soldiers bounced off the stone walls, and he smoked one last cigarette.

The shadow of a man fell on him, but the telltale clicking of the lock didn’t reach his ears. He’d heard the gunshots, but with his eyes closed, he could replace their meaning with fireworks. Fireworks and a small hand clutched in his. Hugo opened his eyes, and looked up.

“We’re here to see if you wanna go pro.”

A nod, and he was suddenly riding in the back of a stolen truck. His back was torn to shreds, and the only other German speaker was giving him an odd look. Almost disgust, almost pity. Hugo snarled at him, and stuffed his left hand under his jacket, searching for the scrap of humanity in him. There was a rabbi among them, he noted. Maybe in another life, he would have been worthy of the smile he gave him.

The crumbling building didn’t smell like his cell, but only because he hadn’t been in it long enough. From then on, every single building would smell of prison for him. From then on, everytime he closed his eyes he would be unable to recall if that hardwood floor felt warm during the summer months. Someone was talking to him, but he wasn’t listening anymore. He barely flinched when a pair of hands sewed him up, closing gaping wounds and tucking the remainder of his soul back inside him. As if that mattered. As if it helped.

A whole eight months later Lt. Aldo Raine sat down next to him with a sharp knife and started peeling an apple. Hugo barely acknowledged him. The lieutenant cleared his throat, and spoke in that odd drawl of his that made Hugo think of cabins near lakes during the autumn months.

“You look like a demon fucked you.”

Hugo smiled, and lit a cigarette. He shrugged in a way that managed to be both dismissive and derisive at the same time. “Nothing new to you.”

“No,” Aldo agreed. “How old?”

“Two.”

The lieutenant had made a face that Hugo had never seen him make, and threw the apple away. “Fuck!”

Hugo hadn’t said anything at first, mainly because there were not enough words in the world to encompass that which was indescribable. Then, with the voice of a man Aldo Raine had never heard, he said, “There is a hell. Believe me, I’ve seen it.”

He went on with life in the way he knew how, and really, the only way he could. There was always Berlin, he supposed. There was always the abyss waiting at the end of the lane, and if not, there was always the cyanide pill he kept tucked next to the scrap of a drawing in the pocket of his shirt. But the world doesn’t stop its trajectory because a man’s heart is gone. The war goes on, hearts are torn, and the clock strikes twelve all the same. Time, Hugo knew, didn’t fix anything. There was no bringing back, there was only pushing forward, sharing a bottle with an Austrian optometrist and shattering the glasses afterward.

Lieutenant Aldo Raine has to transform back into Aldo Raine, and then just into Aldo before Hugo is able to process what he is saying, what he has been saying for the past ten minutes. When the words start to make sense, he had such a visceral reaction to them that Wicki’s hand shot out and gripped the back of his uniform before he toppled over. It takes them a whole three weeks before they’re able to reach the decrepit old building Aldo had described a thousand times. Surprisingly, it was Andy who opened the door, and then Hugo was taking the steps two at a time, his heart aching in his chest. There was a shrill scream that made him turn around in a panic, wide eyes scanning the rows of beds in the hall.

“Papa!” When Hugo dropped to his knees to hold the small girl to himself, it was as if the universe had gone silent. It was then that Wicki realized he had been wrong, because the girl looked exactly like Hugo, but was speaking English, and then it makes sense.

“Where’s your mother?” Hugo’s speaking English too, and this time not sounding like he normally did with the Basterds. It’s clear just from the way he moves his lips that this is a language he is comfortable with, a language spoken at home, in his daily life.

“Mama’s here,” You said from behind them, voice breaking as you attempted to sit up on the bed. Hugo’s eyes lit up, and the scrapped bits of his soul started to mend at the sound. He moved closer to the bed, and leaned down to press his lips against yours. “You found us.”

Hugo looked at Aldo, holding his universe in his arms, and mouthed a thank you. The lieutenant smiled, shrugged, and went back to look out the window.


End file.
